There has been fire

[tufguy]

If a building is on fire or earthquake is happening or an accident that has just taken place in front of me, I am still there these things are happening and my friend arrives and I have to inform him then how to do it? Please check my sentences.

1) There has been fire in this building(its still burning). Past tense there had been fire.

2) There has been earthquake(still happening). Past tense there had been earthquake.

3)There has been an accident(just happened). Past tense there had been accident.

 

[Untaught88]

@Piscean, What do you mean by 'lived', please?

 

[Matthew Wai]

See the definition of 'short-lived' at http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/short-lived

 

[Rover_KE]

You can't separate 'lived' from 'short lived'.

Click here. The hyphen is omitted in this form of the sentence.

 

[Odessa Dawn]

Click here. The hyphen is omitted in this form of the sentence.

I clicked the link, but I couldn't see that sentence.

 

[SoothingDave]

You would say "there has been a​ fire."

 

[Rover_KE]

I clicked the link, but I couldn't see that sentence.

You can see the meaning of 'short-lived'.

 

[tzfujimino]

May I ask a question here?

Is it natural to say "There's a fire going on in this building"?

Thank you.

 

[Rover_KE]

No.

'This building is on fire.'
'There's a fire in this building.'

 

[Matthew Wai]

This building is burning.

 

[tufguy]

And how about earthquake. Do we need to say "Earthquake is happening at the moment"?

 

[emsr2d2]

And how about with "earthquake"? Do we need to say "Earthquake is happening at the moment"?

You need an article before "earthquake" in your suggested sentence. Even then, it's not very natural. At a push, I could imagine hearing someone say "You won't believe this. There is an earthquake happening here right now! The building is shaking. I need to get somewhere safe".

Generally, I wouldn't expect anyone to say anything in the middle of an earthquake but if they did, they might use "There's an earthquake!" The listener would probably understand that they are talking about something which is happening right there and then.

 

[bhaisahab]

When I lived in Udaipur, Rajasthan, there was a terrible earthquake in Bhuj in Gujarat (about 200 kms away). We were woken up at about 6 am by the bed jumping up and down and the windows rattling. I seem to remember saying something like, "What's going on! Is that an earthquake?" I had never experienced anything like it before.

 

[emsr2d2]

I had a similar experience on a Greek island (Kefalonia, I think). At about 5am, I woke up to see the dressing table moving across the floor towards me. Strangely, only then did I realise that the bed was shaking too! I ran out of the door of my room onto the little patio outside where I met the girl in the next room who had also been woken up by it. The shaking had stopped by this time and, almost in unison, we said "Wow! Was that an earthquake?" My boyfriend (and the man in the room next door) slept through the whole thing and didn't believe us when we told them later in the morning. They were only convinced when the elderly owner of the holiday rooms came along to check we were OK. He said "Aha! I see you survived the earthquake!" I remember looking at my boyfriend with a look that could have been interpreted only as "I told you so!"

 

[MikeNewYork]

When I was in college in Champaign, Illinois, we had an earthquake one Saturday morning. I watched a water glass move off my desk and smash on the floor. The quake was not a big one, fortunately. But earthquakes are not common in the Midwest.